Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations

Out Now – Third Edition of The World’s Cheapest Destinations

I’ve been holding off making a big announcement until the new edition AND the cover showed up on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc., but now we’re set. You can now purchase the third edition of The World’s Cheapest Destinations at those online sites or direct from the publisher by clicking the “buy the book” link to your right. It’s not on Fishpond yet, but should be in February sometime.

This one is a bit longer than the others, though it retains the same format and the same destinations. The main change is an update in prices, though it is hard to project much into the future with those. Six months ago the world was much cheaper for some (sorry Europeans and Canadians) and much more expensive for others (nice time now to be earning dollars). Meanwhile, fuel and commodity prices are all up and down like a yo-yo as well, so still take the prices as a rough guide, not as gospel.

I also added more info on some of the “honorable mentions,” including Mexico and Cambodia. There are updates on political changes, such as the increased danger in India, the border gang wars in Mexico, and political troubles in Thailand and Bolivia. As always though, read real international news and don’t rely on TV or the State Department warnings to tell you what’s going on. Yesterday’s war zone is often today’s glossy travel mag cover star—and vice versa.

Overall, the best deals on the planet have stayed pretty constant, though I was about to drop Turkey until their currency floated back down to Earth. Eastern Europe is far cheaper now than it was a year ago, so in many aspects those countries are a better value than Turkey. For one thing, they’re not charging so much for admission fees.

This is a good time to be a traveler though, no matter where you are going. You don’t have a global recession very often and the silver cloud in that scenario is that it is a buyer’s market across the globe. A summer in Europe, January in South America, or festival time anywhere will still be expensive, but otherwise you will find some great deals and welcoming business owners all over. Don’t take this to mean you should be a jerk and bargain everyone down to the last dime—these are people’s livelihoods after all—but it should mean the end of inflated prices for dubious value, at least for now.